Cranbrook co-ed chaos explained: Inside the elite school’s civil war

A battle is raging for the city’s billionaires, corporate titans and moneyed elite to control the 104-year-old governing board of a prestigious eastern suburbs school. See who’s who in the Cranbrook zoo – and whose side they’re on.

Cranbrook headmaster Nicholas Sampson, Katrina Rathie and Warwick Negus.

A battle involving Sydney’s corporate titans and moneyed elite over introducing girls to an elite boys school is blowing the eastern suburbs asunder – and some parents say they should nick off if they don’t have children currently enrolled at the institution.

“This is bulls**t – why don’t they go and get a hobby?” one aggrieved parent told The Daily Telegraph.

The power struggle at the $40,000-a-year Cranbrook School at Bellevue Hill has centred on a clash between headmaster Nicholas Sampson and school council president Jon North.

The stoush appeared to end in spectacular public fashion on Monday after 10 of 11 school council members resigned en masse.

The battle between the board and the principal stemmed from a four month old disagreement between Mr North and Mr Sampson, who is pocketing a salary package of just over $1 million a year.

Cranbrook Council president Jon North who has tendered his resignation from the school board effective December 31.

Vice president of the school council Gillian Larkins.

Underlying the feud was a dispute over the timing of when female students would be admitted to the boys school.

Mr Sampson’s proposal was to give 40 girls entering Year 11 a scholarship and for them to start as soon as next year. But the board supported the majority view among parents that they should be admitted in Year 7 from 2026.

One parent said they were worried about their son being distracted by girls while in class.

“We have all enrolled our sons into Cranbrook Boys School – we didn’t enrol our son into Cranbrook Boys School and maybe one day it will go co-ed,” the parent said.

However, one person close to the whole debacle insisted the school community was behind Mr Sampson because he had lifted academic results.

“You call it a civil war, I call it 10 pin bowling, it was a strike,” he said of the 10 members who signed the resignation letter.

“It makes no sensible sense, to a normal person, why the headmaster has been treated like this and why no one came to support him. That’s what the school community is absolutely outraged about.”

Cranbrook School in Bellevue Hill. Picture: Richard Dobson

Those who agitated for a change of school council members were labelled as “four disaffected individuals” in a letter to parents last week. They included professional management consultant at McKinsey Angus Dawson, and billionaire co-chief investment officer at Caledonia Will Vicars who was reported to have a personal fortune of $1.27 billion this year.

Mr Vicars has pledged $10m to the school and will have his name on a 6,258 sqm building known as the “Vicars Centenary Building”, which has a teaching terrace, a drama theatre, a dining “commons”, a place of worship and an assembly hall.

Caledonia’s billionaire co-chief investment officer Will Vicars.

Macquarie Bank director Nicola Wakefield-Evans at her Paddington home. Picture: John Feder

The other members of the so-called dissident four include Dexus chair Warwick Negus and Macquarie Bank director Nicola Wakefield-Evans. Ms Wakefield Evans categorically ruled out running for a board position on Tuesday and said the majority of parents were supportive of Mr Sampson, evidenced by a recent petition calling for him to remain in his role until at least 2024.

“I think everyone was totally surprised by the overwhelming response from the petition, which was signed by over 1000 people in two days, parents had no forum to talk to the council which is why they signed the petition,” she said.

“They were feeling anxious that there was a possibility that he could leave the school, it was the only way they felt they could send a message.”

The only person who did not resign from the school council on Monday was current SBS board member Katrina Rathie.

Katrina Rathie, head of the Cranbrook Foundation and non-executive director of SBS.

Ms Rathie is an Ascham old girl who has been chair of the Cranbrook Foundation since 2017, a position in which has overseen the millions of dollars of donations for building works pouring into the school.

Some concerned parents now feel like it is the donors who want to run Cranbrook and that the Anglican clergy was being sidelined while the welfare of the students has gone by the wayside.

Members of the outgoing board, which resigned on Monday after what it claimed was co-ordinated media and online attacks, include chief financial officer of the ASX Gillian Larkins, retired corporate lawyer Suzanne Williams, investor Craig Carroll and retired Anglican bishop Rob Forsyth.

Others on the board which will be dissolved on December 31 include architect Susan Fuller, Reverend Michael Jenson from the local church St Mark’s in Darling Point, lawyer turned leadership expert Joe Karsay, Private Client Adviser with Bell Potter Hugh Dowling, and construction industry heavyweight Ben Ritchie.

The picturesque elite Cranbrook School in Bellevue Hill, Sydney. Picture: Richard Dobson

An outgoing council member on Tuesday said some members would run again for the board despite resigning because they still had value to offer the school.

“We all decided to go in the end, life is too short to spend it fighting battles you can’t win,” the person said.

The only person’s position who looked more stable than before the civil war is the principal Mr Sampson, who is paid just north of $1 million a year as part of his generous salary package, which includes the provision to live in a small Victorian mansion just within the school gates, where he resides with the mother of a former student.

Oxford-educated Mr Sampson came to Cranbrook in 2012 after numerous stints at Australian and British private schools including Geelong Grammar.

Smaller trivial matters have also irked parents, including their displeasure with Mr Sampson’s decision to relocate his office from where it was in the top part of the school on Victoria Rd to a new administration block where the new office has a direct view of the harbour. “He couldn’t be more isolated from the students,” one parent said.